I have a Toshiba laptop with windows 8 pre-installed in it. I would like to take a system image including OS, drivers and software. After that need to install windows 7 keeping windows 8 as it is. In case of failure, this image can be restored right?

If I want to remove windows 7 only how will I do it to keep windows 8 only.

Yesterday, I clean-installed Windows 8 Pro x86 on an old Dell Vostro 1400 laptop which had been running Windows 7 Ultimate, and it activated and ran fine, without even a single exclamation point in Device Manager. I applied the update necessary to make the Store offer 8.1 and proceeded to install it as I've done on a couple other machines. After downloading the thing, it errored out with:

Couldn't install Windows 8.1

Contact your PC manufacturer to see if you can upgrade the System BIOS

When I clicked the OK button, it then gave me the informative and grammar-challenged error box:

Ever the optimist, I clicked Try again, and of course, it proceeded to download all over again from scratch, only to error out in the same way. I then downloaded all the Windows 8 updates, although just the one had been necessary on my other machines that successfully upgraded to 8.1, and tried again, only to get the same result.

Today, I've discovered the Windows 8.1 Compatibility Assistant, which avoids the lengthy download of the upgrade every time (Microsoft, maybe you should run it implicitly before downloading 3 GB of transient data), and it tells me:

This PC doesn't meet system requirements

Contact your PC manufacturer to see if you can upgrade the System BIOS

Obviously, no BIOS updates are available, and what exactly is the problem here with my BIOS. The obvious googling turned up nothing except some people with Sony Vaios that had the same problem, which was corrected with a BIOS update, and of course, there is no information on what their BIOS update does to make the 8.1 upgrade possible.

A while back I purchased a computer that had Windows 8, I then upgraded it to 8.1 when the update came out.

Through work I have been given permission to us one of the MAK keys we have for 8.1 Pro/Enterprise, and trying to use "Windows Anytime Update" says I cannot upgrade using the key. I don't want to install over everything or upgrade using the install CD as it usually messes things up... Is tehre an easy way to upgrade from a OEM base version to a MAK Pro/Enterprise edition?

I'm working on a multi-cam shooting setup. I have 12 Nikon D5000 targeting one object at different angles. I want all cameras to be triggered at the exact same time. So I have installed Vello Freewave Remote Shutter receivers on every camera and I trigger the shutter with one transmitter. They do all trigger, but sometimes, they are not all triggering at the same time. So 1 try out of 5, one or two cameras have slight shutter time difference with the other cameras. Is the radio frequency to blame? I cannot change it with the transmitter model I have. Would other setups work better?

I am currently using asus a42ja as my main laptop, and installed EOM version of windows 7 on it. Then i got an upgrade (from Microsoft store) to windows 8, a couple of months ago I upgraded to windows 8.1. Long story short, i got an SSD , and i wanted to clean install windows 8.1 on it.

1. the windows update advisor for windows 8.1 wont receive the product key that i currently have (win 8 upgrade) does that mean i cant do clean installation?? or should i install win 8 and do upgrade manually (which is a pain)??

2. lets say i will do clean intall win 8 on the ssd, will my upgrade key works? will i encounter a problem with the activation process?

3. other option is to reset my win 8.1 and clone the fresh copy to the ssd , but i never done this before , only refresh, and if im resetting my computer, do i need to re activate the windows? (and will my product key works?)

4. the last and least preferred option : do windows refresh and clone the system drive to ssd.

is there some utility to backup the windows activation?all i wanted to do is do a clean install of windows 8.1 (and activate it) on the new drive.

I have windows 7 and bought windows 8 upgrade discs (still unopened), I have no SSD now but want to buy one. What should i Do install win 8 first then the SSD? Or the other way around? What's better What will my recovery options be if I get a nasty virus? Also once my ssd is in it can't fit everything so when i want to download things and programs to the old HDD that will be fine right i can still access them from the desktop.

I just got a new laptop, running Windows 8.1 SL. I wanted to connect it to the office Active Directory domain, just to find that it can't. Now I know I can go to Control Panel, to the "Add features to Windows 8.1", and purchase an 8.1 Pro key. But my company has a Windows 8.1 volume license key, and there are still a few available that I can use.

However, I already have everything set up pretty much the way I want it; I don't want to format and re-install Windows. I tried to do the Windows "Add features to Windows 8.1" ("Windows Anytime Upgrade" as it was called in Windows 7) using our Volume License key, but it doesn't want to accept the key.

So I was wondering if there is any way to do this upgrade without losing any data? For example, is there something I can do with slmgr? Or can I maybe just insert the 8.1 Pro disc and do an upgrade?

It looks like this PC can't run Windows 8.1. This might be because the Users or Program Files Folder is being redirected to another partition.

Using the guide (User Profiles - Relocate to another Partition or Disk), I had relocated my user profiles to D: Drive, when I installed my windows 8 Pro. I was able to go Windows Store to download 8.1 but I get the above error ...

Can I use the same guide and move back all user profiles, including local admin to C: Drive? and then upgrade to 8.1?

Yesterday, my Windows 8.1 preview machine decided it was going to restart every 2 hours unless I install the full 8.1. The problem is that the store install doesn't work; when I click "download", I get a message saying "something happened and the install of 8.1 Preview can't be completed." I also lost my installation disc at some point, assuming that would even work. What should I do?

I have Win 7 installed on an SSD with all other files on separate disks. (User files, etc) Can I also install, to dual boot, Win 8 and point everything to the same user files on the same separate disks?

I've tried everything, and it seems nothing works. Makes it to 72 percent on "Keep files, settings and apps", "Keep files" and "Nothing". Any other methods that might work? By the way, I'm using a USB to install the upgrade.

Having previously upgraded to Windows 8 I restored the factory installation of Windows 7 prior to warranty repairs to my PC. Now that the repairs are satisfactorily completed what are my best options in upgrading again? On the one hand I could go ahead with the upgrade now or on the other should I wait until Microsoft have completed development of Windows 8.1?

At work i have Windows 8 Pro installed from an MSDN ISO, having been waiting for the 8.1 update today i have now just seen a quote on Microsoft's site saying "If you installed Windows 8 using an MSDN ISO, you might be able to install Windows 8.1 using a similar ISO from MSDN"

Is there an easy upgrade option for this type of Windows 8 install? Preferably, without losing any data.

I purchased my HP Envy laptop a few months back - it came pre-installed with Windows 8. This ended up becoming problematic because as a gamer, a few of the games I wished to play were not compatible (even after scouring the net and researching a million ways to try get certain games to work).

So to cut a long story short, I did a full partition backup of all the partitions my laptop and then reformatted everything into 1 single hard drive, which I then installed Windows 7 on to. While Windows 7 works well on this machine, I've lost a few functions due to some incompatible drivers (like the amazing audio my laptop used to have, the fingerprint scanner, etc). I soon came to discover that my laptop model was specifically designed for Windows 8 and could therefore not be perfectly compatible with Windows 7.

So now, I would really like to restore how my laptop was beforehand (with Windows 8), although I am not sure how to go about doing this. I still have my full backup of my laptop's previous state. The program I used to back it up was EaseUs Todo Backup. This may seem like a bit of a dumb question, but I'm a little nervous to tamper with things I may not understand, like I did when I previously downgraded my PC to Win 7.

I read about how to upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit with clean install. I have a 32bit win7 on my desktop and a 64 bit Windows 8.1 on my laptop.

My question is can I use the Windows 8.1 laptop do download the upgrade assistant and get Windows 8 64 bit? I don't want to screw up my laptop especially cause it has an OEM Windows 8 that how to reinstall in case of OS breakdown.

In case this is not possible, is there any way to get a 64 bit Windows 8 upgrade downloaded without another 64 bit os already installed?

I'm upgrading from Windows 8* After downloading 3 gig and then it installs automatically. THen it restart automatically and at 68% ("Getting Devices Ready: 68%" it crashed. Restarted it and it restored back to Windows 8..

An error code is:

0xC1900101, 0x30018

Don't want to download 3 gig again, where is the installation file saved?

I had a laptop running Windows XP. When Windows 8 came out, I downloaded Windows 8 Pro upgrade. I clean-installed it and also upgraded to WMC edition when Microsoft were giving this away for free.

Now that PC is kind of dying (it is about eight years old,) so I have bought myself a new one. The new one came running Windows 8 (not Pro, not WMC) OEM. I have no intention of ever using my old PC again, so my question is as follows:

How do I legally remove the Pro and WMC licences (and if required, Windows 8 itself) from the old PC and upgrade the new PC's Windows 8 to Pro WMC? I have a record of both the Pro and WMC product keys already. But how do I legally move them across to the new PC and upgrade the new PC's Windows 8 OEM to Pro WMC?

i have purchased windows8 to upgrade windows 7, install helper confirmed virtually all was ok to do it , windows 8 would not install over windows7 so after talking to microsoft i made a partition and dual booted to see if windows 8 worked, it does. Now i would like to upgrade my existing 7 or migrate all the emails programmes etc to windows8. what is the way to do this do i just try and upgrade windows 7 with 8 or is there a better way.

Trying to upgrade 8 to 8.1. X64 system, has been very stable. All upgrades installed, except for Bing.

Every time I try to download from Windows Store, as soon as I hit the download button, I get a green screen with the shopping bag in the middle, then everything reverts to windows 8 start screen. No download happens?

when the windows 8.1 upgrade came out I updated to it without any problems but a few weeks ago a driver update showed up in windows update thingy. I decided to update it but it went horribly wrong my screen went black and stayed black for a hour, that's when I decided to restart my computer after the logo I just got a black screen with a flashing mouse. I made a recovery stick with my sisters windows 8.1 laptop and renewed my windows to 8. I wanted to upgrade to windows 8.1 again but it didn't work after it rebooted it just went to windows 8 again and gave me an error message that said that it couldn't update to windows 8.1. I searched on Google for a few hour and what I got was that I need to update my video drivers. I tried the default drivers I got (v8.9) it didn't work I tried the newest beta one (v13.11) didn't work either. And because my laptop manufacturer is Toshiba i cant update to the latest release of catalyst control center so i have to use the old version of Toshiba or the beta version. Both didn't work BUT before the driver incident I successfully updated to windows 8.1 with v13.11 beta however now it doesn't want to work anymore.

I was upgrading to Win 8.1 pro with WMC, but when the download was just 5% completed, the net got disconnected due to power cut. When I restarted the system and Click on the Upgrade Tile in the Store, it goes to Download Page. And when I click on the Download button, it says Application is installed. I can't find it in My apps either so that I can click on uninstall and do a fresh upgrade. The download was only 5% completed. Now I am unable to upgrade.

PS: I googled somewhere and found that I had to empty the SoftwareDistribution folder is to be emptied. After doing that, now when I try to upgrade I get "Your Windows 8.1 installation could not be completed, something went wrong and the windows installation could not complete".

I am interested in upgrading many computers to Windows 8.1 (from Windows 8). Ideally I would like to create an upgrade DVD, which is 'self running' and contains the required update files - Download Windows 8.1 Update for x64-based Systems (KB2919355) from Official Microsoft Download Center

According to Microsoft (previous link) it is necessary to download several update files, and install them in a particular order. I would like to do away with this tedious method...

Is there a way to upgrade my Windows 8 Enterprise desktop to Windows 8.1 Enterprise without losing my installed programs, files, settings, etc..?

From what I am reading online, Windows 8 Enterprise must be upgraded via iso to Windows 8.1 Enterprise. I read a few user saying there is no upgrade and you have to do a fresh install of Windwos 8.1 Enterprise. I do not want to lose my customizations, files, and programs.